Stringer and the Hell-Bound Herd

by Lou Cameron

  Stringer said, “Then I reckon we’re both just natural assholes. I didn’t know you knew Tarington that well. How come he’s not wanted more serious by the law if he’s so dangerous?”

  Diego shrugged and said, “As you just saw, he likes to work up a good story to justify himself before he slaps leather in the name of sweet reason. He has never killed anyone here in Placer County, as far as I know, yet. There are vague stories about him killing more than one hombre in other places at other times. Let us hope there is more wind than substance to the tales of his terrible temper, eh?”

  Stringer said, “Amen to that. I can’t say the direction he’s taking that herd inspires much confidence in his good judgement, though. Has he ever done anything that dumb before, Diego?”

  The old man shook his head and replied, “No. The few times he and his muchachos passed through in the past, they were driving Nevada beef from the far side of Donner Pass the more sensible way. Seldom much farther than these loading pens here. That is for how I know him at all and admire him and his muchachos so much. Tell me something, Señor MacKail, does my face look greasy to you, old and ugly as it may be?”

  Stringer shook his head and said, “I don’t know all the words to „Green Grow the Lilacs’ either. But it’s never stopped some of your boys from calling me a Green-Grow or Gringo. I’m sure glad our boys weren’t singing „The Blue Tailed Fly’ when they invaded Mexico that time. But getting back to a gringo called Tarington, why would he drive Nevada cows even as far as here, the railroad running over Donner Pass a heap faster than anything on four legs can move?”

  The old Mex shrugged and replied, “Quien sabe? They use double locomotives to get freight trains over the pass. Perhaps one saves some dinero by asking one’s stock for to walk over, eh?”

  Stringer said he’d ask Tarington when and if the contract drover got back. The old Mex cocked an eyebrow and asked, “Do you imagine he’ll show up in a conversational mood?” To which Stringer replied with a fatalistic shrug, “In that case it won’t matter all that much. With at least one of us dead the survivor’s not likely to really give a damn about any other foolishness over damn-fool cows.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Stringer had covered some night fighting down Cuba way that time they’d had the big fuss with Spain, so he was more used to how dark and still it could seem after sundown than the old man and younger men hunkered with him in the darkness between the Acorn Corral and railside cattle pens. When a distant church steeple struck nine and one of the muchachos repeated his opinion that those other fools were halfway to Donner Pass by this time, Stringer growled, “You run along if you’ve a mind to. Nobody with a lick of sense would go for those Circle Six cows this side of midnight. The whole town’s still up and about. That church social they were talking about ought to keep folk up later than usual this evening. Between two and four in the morning is the usual time for Apaches, cat burglars, and cow thieves.”

  There was a general moan of discontent. One of the kids asked why, in that case, they were already freezing their tails in the chilly mountain mists if nobody else was likely to care so early.

  Old Diego was the elder who explained, “Sometimes night raiders show up early. The idea is for to steal the stock, not for to punch a time clock, Hernan. Let us hope they show up late. For that will mean they want the cows without a fight. If they show up this side of midnight, ask no questions and shoot for to kill.”

  Stringer nodded grimly and said, “Pay attention to your elders. He’s right. Looking on the bright side, they’re more likely to just ride in whooping and yelling if they mean to make an open fight of it. They’re likely to be liquored-up as well. For as I just said, that’s no sensible way to run off stock.”

  Young Hernan asked, “Won’t that Anglo lady be able to press charges, even if they get through us, tonight?”

  Stringer nodded but explained, “Tarington may feel possession is nine-tenths of the law and he may have a point if the local law fails to stop him this side of the state line, which is what, a day and a half by cow from here?”

  Old Diego snorted and said, “Jethro Durler has not the sand in his belly for to dispute the ownership of just a few cows among too many and, once over the pass into Nevada…Caramba! Could that be the true purpose of all this wrong-way herding? What if even half that herd could be shown to be wrongfully amassed for to leave the state without the blessings of any true owners?”

  Stringer thought before he answered, “Sounds a mite raw, even for a natural bully like Tarington. Transporting stolen goods across a state line constitutes a federal offense and Willow Watt’s already allowed she’d agreed to the sale of these cows we’re guarding for her. The only real dispute seems to be that Tarington wants to push on to Nevada with the lady’s beef before she’s been paid for cow-one.”

  Old Diego sighed and said, “I see why we must not let him do so. The people he works for could have the poor young widow tied up in court forever, insisting she’d agreed to them taking her beef off her hands on consignment. I could tell you sad stories of my own people and business contracts written in English with fine print few of your own people could understand. But since you, too, are a Californio as well as a cattleman…”

  “We both know any lawyer she can afford will tell her to settle for mayhaps a dime on the dollar,” Stringer cut in wearily. “I told her not to let go her beef without seeing some dinero, the more fool me.”

  Then one of the Mex kids cocked his gun and hissed, “Alto! Quien es?” So Stringer shouted, “Hold your fire!” He was glad he had when Willow Watt called out, “It’s me!” and he saw he’d been right about her high heels crunching grit a mite delicate for a raiding party. As she moved in she told them, “I just got a money order from Sacramento! It was all an honest mistake. I feel so foolish now!”

  Stringer asked if she’d cashed the money order yet and when she confessed she couldn’t before the bank opened in the morning he told her, “You may still be acting foolish. Is it a bank draft or a Western Union money order, Willow?”

  She said, “It’s made out to be cashed by the Wells Fargo bank, right here in Dutch Flat. What difference does that make, Stuart?”

  He said, “A heap. Within limits, Western Union gives you the cash right off, from its office safe. You won’t know before the bank opens around nine in the morning whether you’re holding money or just a sheet of yellow paper, see?”

  She didn’t. She asked, “Are you saying Wells Fargo isn’t good for the money?” To which he replied, “No bank is good for a bum check and that’s what the money order you just got could amount to.”

  She asked, “But what if they tell me it’s good when Wells Fargo opens for business in the morning?” So he had to admit, “You get to cash it, of course. Meanwhile there’s no way any of us can say for sure whether you’ve been paid for yonder cows or not.”

  Old Diego had naturally been listening. He asked, “In that case, do we fight or let them have the beef when they ride in for it as Tarington said they would later tonight?”

  Stringer sighed and said, “I wish you hadn’t asked that. If we let them drive Miss Willow’s cows off without paying for „em we’re sure going to look dumb. On the other hand, if that wire Great Basin Beef just sent is legitimate…”

  He didn’t have to finish. Old Diego nodded soberly and decided, “This game is getting too rich for Spanish blood in a state run by others. Have you any idea how high they would hang these muchachos and me for gunning even one gringo who held legal title to these gringo cows?”

  Stringer nodded and said, “I never told you it was your fight, viejo. I’m not even sure it’s my fight now. So why don’t we just forget about it?”

  The old gent didn’t have to be told that twice. His conscience was clear as he told Hernan to keep an eye on the corral for now and thanked the others for their time and trouble. As they faded off one way, young Hernan said something about making sure of a tarp over some hay and rolled through the r
ails to vanish somewhere among the ponies penned for the night over that way. After an awkward silence, Willow told Stringer, “Well, we may as well be getting on back to the hotel.” But he said, “Not hardly. I told Chuck Tarington he couldn’t have any of your stock until they’d paid you for them, and he told me I was full of it and that he’d be back. I don’t know whether he’s a man of his word or not. I know I am.”

  She shook her head wildly and insisted, “I can’t let you. Either one of you could wind up dead and I’d never be able to forgive myself, or the winner, if it turned out this money order is good!”

  He grimaced and said, “The winner could wind up swinging for premeditated murder, too, come to study on it. But don’t you see what a bind you’d be left in if they’ve stung you with worthless paper?”

  She sighed and said, “I’m sort of getting used to feeling broke. I’d as soon have a clear conscience and no money as the little blood money so few cows are worth when you get right down to it.”

  He started to say it was the principle as much as it was the price of her beef, but then he considered who really owned the damned beef to begin with and, seeing it wasn’t his, no matter who wound up with it, he said, “I’ve sure painted my fool self into a corner, haven’t I? There may be a less messy way out. The night shift at the Sun might have wired me something as well by this time. If Great Basin Beef Incorporated turns out just crazy instead of crooked, it may be safe to let „em drag your beef out in the desert with „em after all. I’ll still feel better about it once they show you the color of some real money, though.”

  She said she would, too, but added as she took his left arm that a hundred cows were hardly worth one human life. Women were always saying things like that, bless their hides. They still expected men to pay for all the flowers, books, and candy after letting others walk all over „em.

  There’d have been more street lamps at that end of the little town if Stringer had had anything to say about it. They found Western Union as much by feel as anything more certain and Stringer’s pals on the night crew had in fact wired back what they’d dug out of the morgue for him.

  Bad News Bradford, it turned out, was just as bad as folk this far from Frisco said he’d been. Born in the Pacific Northwest to a logger and a barmaid of ill repute, Bradford had drifted on down the coast after leaving home around the time he should have been thinking of high school and, like many a bad man before him, he’d learned all too much about guns and gun fighting as a budding peace officer.

  Recruited and trained by the Frisco P.D., Wesley Bradford had found a better or at least better-paying position with a private guard agency after getting booted off the city force for shaking down the Chinese merchants on his beat out of season. Old Jethro had been wrong about them only wanting Bradford on one formal charge of Homicide. Fired for drinking on the job as a hired gun, Bad News had stuck up a check cashing shop in Fresno and a post office in Modesto, making him wanted State and Federal as well as well-traveled. As he gave Willow a short rundown on the gent she’d spotted behind him just in time he decided, “He could have been recruited in Sacramento.

  Lord knows by whom. He’d have had no reason to get off that train this side of the state line if he hadn’t been told to finish me off on his way to Nevada.”

  He handed her that page of the multipaged telegram as he read on about the little they had on Great Basin Beef Incorporated and the apparent destination of all that beef on the hoof. He made a wry face and told her, “Now I’m really mixed up. The outfit was started in Reno, moved recently to Sacramento, and has a good credit rating in Nevada as well as California. In sum they only sound stupid. So, hold on to that bank draft they wired you and you’ll likely wind up rich after all.”

  She dimpled up at him but sighed, “I’d hardly call myself rich, when you consider all those few cows cost me. But at least I’ll be able to get a new start, down in the big valley where girls are allowed to dress fashionable and nibble more chocolate than mountain oysters.”

  He chuckled and said, “You’re not so ugly as a cowgirl. But I take it you mean to start over as a Gibson Girl with your grubstake?”

  She nodded and said, “Being a rancher’s wife was a lot nicer than being a rancher’s widow surrounded by cowboys who come courting with a fistful of wildflowers and a hearty cattle call. But never mind about me, now. Why do you think someone sent that awful Bradford cuss to backshoot you?”

  He said, “I wish I knew. Someone must think I know something I just plain don’t. The only thing I’ve been working on up here in these hills, is that loco cattle drive that just caught up with me. But now that I’ve met up with the cuss in charge he doesn’t strike me as clever enough to have all that much to hide. I’d best get you back to the hotel before I saddle up my new pony and ride on up the line to their night camp.”

  She didn’t resist as he steered her back outside, but she did ask him what he’d been drinking since last they’d met. She told him, “You can’t ride into that big outfit’s night camp alone, Stuart! Not after having words with their ramrod!”

  He said, “Sure I can. For all I know it’s within walking distance up the slope a piece. Tarington said something about a big burn and someone in town will surely know the place and how to get there.”

  She hugged his elbow tighter as she insisted, “Never mind where they might or might not be, you silly thing! They’re more likely to peg a shot at you than they are to explain their odd notions about cattle drives to you! Can’t you see that?”

  He nodded but said, “Telling old Chuck our war is over might be a fine way to patch things up. I’ll tell him I rode in to let him know you were paid off and say I’m sorry for doubting his authority. If he has the manners of a gnat he’d have to at least offer me some coffee. Since he didn’t strike me as all that clever earlier this evening, I might get some simple answer nobody’s been able to offer me up to now and, if so, I might well be able to ride on down to Fat Valley with you in the morning. My boss told me to find out why in thunder they aim to drive all those cows so apparently misdirected, not to ride out across the desert with „em if I don’t have to.”

  She said she’d love to have him escort her down to Sacramento and civilization but still fussed at him about riding out to such rough surroundings after dark. They were still debating it when they got to the hotel. As he was escorting her through the lobby, the night room clerk called them over.

  Stringer was braced for a dumb discussion about the room key in the pocket of his jeans. Like most well-traveled gents he’d long since found it simpler to just hang on to a hotel key than to stop at the fool desk every time he went in or out. Most hotel clerks not only didn’t care but enjoyed the rest. He was afraid this old fuss was being a spoilsport about the lady in his company, even though he’d told the day manager he might be entertaining company and paid off accordingly. The bullshit about taking guests of either sex up to a single was more a matter of profit and loss than morals. Hotels lost money hiring out shelter for two for the price of one and how many couples would be dumb enough to ante up if they could get away with either one of „em checking in solo?

  But that wasn’t what was eating the prune-faced old cuss after all. He told Stringer Marshal Durler had been searching high and low for them both and that they’d find him in the tap room, through yonder arch, if they knew what was good for them.

  With Willow still clinging to his left elbow Stringer moseyed on in to see what the town law wanted. Durler was jawing with the barkeep and a waitress in a rainy-suzie skirt at one end of the bar. Stringer sat Willow properly at one of the tables before he went on across the smoked-up but otherwise nearly empty tap room to see what Durler wanted. The waitress went over to see what Willow might want as Durler nodded at Stringer and said, “I was afraid you and the Widow Watt might have lit out. Hear about them stopping another train up in Donner Pass around sundown? ”

  Stringer whistled softly and said, “Not hardly. I was over by the Acorn Corral a
bout then. I can alibi old Diego and half the local Mexicans as well. Is there any point to this discussion, Jethro?”

  The town law shrugged and said, “Just being neighborly, you being a newspaperman and all. News went out some time ago along the railroad’s own wire, of course. So you’ll be able to read all about it in all the papers, soon as the morning train drops „em off, I mean.”

  Stringer got out his watch, muttering, “With or without all the details, you mean. Let’s see, Donner Pass is about thirty miles, uphill almost all the way, but that roan I just bought…”

  “Forget it,” Durler cut in. “That’s what I wanted to make sure we had an understanding about. Knowing you’re a newspaperman with a pony out back and another train robbery not too far off, I was afraid you’d light out for the pass afore we got a few details straight.”

  Stringer said he was listening. So Durler told him, “To begin with there’s nothing going on up in Donner Pass right now. The gang killed one of the crew and winged two more as they blowed the safe and got away clean with the contents of the same. As soon as they could get their hands back down the train crew highballed for Reno, backwards. That is too far for you to ride overnight, even if Reno was still in Placer County, California, which it ain’t. I’ve been jawing about you on the telee-phone with the coroner’s office down in Auburn, the other way entirely, if you follow my drift.”

  Stringer swore softly under his breath and muttered, “Remind me never to gun a back shooter up this way again, even if he’s wanted by the law and I can prove self-defense!”

  The town law nodded and replied, “I just did. I figure with luck they’ll empanel a coroner’s jury Monday or Tuesday and since it’s agreed you only done what you had to…”

  “Now hold on!” Stringer protested. “You know I was sent up here to cover that cattle drive and they just came through this evening. If I’m stuck here over the damned weekend they’ll be long gone before I can even ask them where they’re going!”